ENGL41430: Thomas Pynchon

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• Building upon analytical and investigative skills developed at undergraduate level, this module will provide students with a rigorous but open-ended introduction to the fictions of Thomas Pynchon. To these ends, it will integrate close textual study with broader discussions of the cultural, historical and political co-ordinates that frame Pynchons unique body of work.
• The module will pay particular attention to debates about the nature of postmodernity raised by his novels, stories and essays, encouraging students to both evaluate and problematise Pynchons status as a postmodern writer.
• The module also provides a unique opportunity to analyse in depth what might tentatively be called Pynchons emerging late style".
• It aims to forge productive connections with other American and world literatures that might share some of Pynchons aesthetic or political concerns.
• The module complements other single-author modules at Masters level and widens the options available in American and, more broadly, contemporary literature.

• The emergence of Thomas Pynchon (1937) on the literary scene heralds a unique kind of American voice. He is a writer who directly inherits from the formal experiments of the modernist avant-garde yet at the same time absorbs the lessons of genre fiction, the Beats and the 1960s counter-culture. Frequently held up as the arch postmodernist, whose texts are characterised by a perpetual state of epistemological crisis, Pynchons work both invites and resists an extraordinary range of critical/historical approaches. The status of Gravitys Rainbow alone, for example, is testament to this - a novel often described as a natural successor to Ulysses or Moby Dick in its intricacy and encyclopaedic scope. However, an emphasis on Pynchons formidable reputation and his status as a recluse has tended to obscure the cogent analysis of his texts and the implications of his work beyond the free play of the signifier. For all his trickery and wild humour, Pynchon is a writer who has consistently engaged with such weighty and pertinent themes as the legacy of Enlightenment, colonialism, resistance politics, genocide, military-industrial warfare and more. This module will therefore consider the ways in which Pynchon can read as both a postmodernist and as a writer who complicates or unsettles certain notions of postmodernity. Studying Pynchon in this way provides students with the rare chance to analyse Pynchons long novels in detail over a sustained period of time. Whilst the module will familiarize newcomers with the established critical approaches to Pynchons fiction, it is designed to encourage students to formulate their own responses to his difficult but exhilarating body of work. The choice of texts will be open to some negotiation, ranging across the whole corpus of Pynchons writing (up to and including recent works such as Mason & Dixon and Against the Day).

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• Students are expected to acquire a sound working knowledge of Pynchons fiction and a sophisticated critical awareness of his development as a writer from the late fifties to the present day.
• Students will also gain a clear understanding of the small but significant body of criticism that has evolved in tandem with Pynchons emergence as a major literary talent.
• In a wider sense, students will also engage with Pynchons difficulty" or with the subversive and/or problematic dimensions of his fiction.

Subject-specific Skills:

• Students will reflect on the various ways in which Pynchon forces his readers to reconceive of the relationship between narrative" and historical" time, for example, or on the complex relays between postmodern play" and committed political engagement. With this in mind, students will further develop their ability to interact with a variety of advanced theoretical texts that will enrich their sensitivity to Pynchons writing and his place in literary history.

Key Skills:

• Students studying this module will develop:
• An advanced ability to analyse critically;
• An advanced ability to acquire complex information of diverse kinds in structured and systematic ways;
• An advanced ability to interpret complex information of diverse kinds through the distinctive skills derived from the subject;
• Expertise in conventions of scholarly presentation and bibliographical skills;
• An independence of thought and judgement, and ability to assess acutely the critical ideas of others;
• Sophisticated skills in critical reasoning;
• An advanced ability to handle information and argument critically;
• A competence in information-technology skills such as word-processing and electronic data access;
• Professional organisation and time-management skills;
• Further skills in translating.

• Students are encouraged to develop advanced conceptual abilities and analytical skills as well as the ability to communicate an advanced knowledge within seminars.
• The capacity for advanced independent study is demonstrated through the completion of two summative pieces of work (2,000 and 3,000 words in length).
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.

All students will be offered a 15-minute 1:1 essay consultation which will form the formative assessment component for this module. This activity will not be centrally timetabled and should be organised between the student and tutor as schedules permit.

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